This time some years ago I'd have been buckling into the car, readying myself for the last of our shopping trips to Dallas. The leather carseats would chill through my pants and I'd shiver while we waited for the defroster to leave us two hills of clear window. I'd probably have already figured out most of my gifts and those that I hadn't, in two hours I'd stumble across my mom in stores buying them. Once home, Mom'd constantly yell to keep us out of the kitchen and dining room while she wrapped presents. Of course I would be starving or thirsty or in need of flashlights or cook books.

All of these conventions on my usual holidays at my parents' house have been falling off with each passing year. Last year when I realized this, I was stricken with some flavor of immature grief, for a lost life. This year, I'll settle into my new regemine of being sour and grouchy and feeling desperate and wild. "Celebrating" with the wrong family, the wrong house; nearly the wrong goddamned everything and everyone. Please promise that this will be the last.